My Mum sent me some of my old notes books, things from when I was a kid. More stuff to clutter up our house. I do love getting rid of stuff. Marie Kondo was a Goddess send. Anyway, flicking through one of the note books when I was probably 12 I saw I’d written out different alphabets/scripts from different languages. Including Sanskrit, I remember being amazed that each sign represented a consonant and a vowel. Learning Sanskrit has been an on going passion, not that I’m particularly good. One of the hardest things to get used to is words running into other words. Sometimes this gives rise to confusion. An example would be where one word ends in A and the next word begins in A you’d only have a single long ā. This is fine except an A can make a word negative. So himsāhimsa ca. Violence and non violence. Himsa is the word for violence, Ahimsa for non violence. And Ca means ‘and’ and is usually added at the end.

Anyway most of the violence has stopped in the Mahabharata. The war is over. Give peas a chance. Arjuna is waiting for Krishna to get down from their chariot. Traditionally the driver gets down first. Eventually Arjuna jumps off and then Krishna gets down, no sooner had he alighted then the chariot burst into flames. Arjuna realises that Krishna has been protecting him all along. The soldiers in the Pandava army were debating who was best Arjuna or Bhima? Krishna said why don’t you ask Barbareek. Barbareek was possibly the son of Bhima or his grandson. Anyway he had arrived at the war with an arrow that could kill everyone. He’d also taken the vow to stand with whoever was loosing. Krishna pointed out that as soon as he started fighting he’d be on the wining side. So Barbareek sat and watched. When the soldiers asked him who was better Bhima or Arjuna. He replied he only saw Krishna’s Sudarshan Chakra wizzing though the air cutting off the heads of the unrighteous kings. Those who have just taken without giving.

We’re reminded obviously of Krishna’s awesome power but also that he is only here to sort out adharma, as have his previous incarnations and those to come. To rebalance the world.

Even though the war has ended and there are only five Kauravas left. Bhishma who’s lying on a bed of arrows waiting for the right time to die. Duryodhana who is on his way out, bleeding to death, and three others. Ashwatthama, Drona’s son, Kripa and Kritavarma. Ashwatthama is furious that his father was killed by step Pandavas braking rules and swears revenge. And so a terrible night time attack is planned…

Tomorrow we’ll take a quick look at who did what to who. Who cheated/broke the rules of war.